There is a particular cruelty in teaching yoga with arthritic joints. I am 51 years old, I have been a yoga and movement instructor for 21 years, and for the last four of those years I have been quietly managing…
I had my first gout attack at 52 — right big toe, a Tuesday night after an indulgent business dinner. By morning I had a rheumatology appointment and a diagnosis: serum uric acid at 9.2 mg Allopurinol followed, it worked,…
For a long time, I avoided talking openly about my joint pain. Like many adults in their late forties who have lived an active life — decades of running, weightlifting, and outdoor activities — I had begun experiencing the accumulated…
I spent thirty-two years as a registered nurse. I was on my feet for twelve-hour shifts for most of that career, first in orthopedics and then in a neurology ward. I know what nerve damage looks like on a chart,…
My name is Margaret. I spent thirty-one years as a registered nurse — the last eighteen of them in a hospital neurology ward. I have sat at the bedside of patients managing peripheral neuropathy. I have watched what untreated nerve…
My name is Diane. I am fifty-one years old and I have been teaching yoga for nineteen years. For most of that time, I was the person my students assumed was immune to the physical problems they came to my…
My name is Doris. I am seventy-two years old, I am a retired postal worker from Dayton, Ohio, and I spent thirty-four years walking daily routes in all weathers. For most of my working life, people marveled at my physical…
My name is Helen. I am sixty-one years old, I have been a public librarian for thirty-three years, and I approach every health question the way I approach every reference question: I read everything I can find before I form…
My name is Patricia. I am fifty-one years old and I have been a certified personal trainer in Atlanta for eighteen years. I teach six days per week — strength classes, functional movement sessions, corporate fitness programs. I spend a…